William is the lead travel agent for an irie family of four. He hails from Nashville where his family wanders the world looking to quench their thirst for adventure, laughs and positivity. Live within your means, travel beyond them!

The metal card. The overnight delivery. The over-the-top packaging. Go ahead and suck it up and admit that you simply love the difference in look and feel of the premium credit cards. Just how important is the aesthetics that accompany your brand new credit card? Maybe more than you think. From a consumer standpoint, the appeal is obvious. But from a marketing standpoint, it’s a little bit of genius involved in the delivery from the issuer to the eventual destination. The financial industry is always looking for an edge that will make their products and services simply stand out...

Is Capital One really mimicking the Chase 5/24 rule for its applications? It appears so! After taking a year off for the most part in chasing credit card offers, my wife and I have been fairly aggressive for the most part to try to stock up some points for some big trips on the horizon. The year off was mainly taken out of necessity at the time in order for us to see if we could somehow climb out of the Chase 5/24 rule that seemed to have handcuffed us recently. Sometime around the beginning of 2017 we basically...

“Turn your spare change into travel. ” I’m always excited to receive offers in the mail from the credit cards in my wallet. I’m usually excited when Barclays sends me one as they’ve been quite lucrative when it comes to small total purchases equating to fairly large bonuses, especially the Aviator Red MasterCard. So it comes as no surprise when I received this latest postcard in the mail with those aforementioned words about turning change into travel through a new pilot program. The offer states: We’re extending to you an exclusive invitation to participate in our new Flight Cents...

Flying these days doesn’t seem fun at all. I’ll start off with that statement because the rest of this can only get better as I continue. With all of the misery that comes with flying, it’s almost impossible to find the positive side of an aviation adventure to get you from point a to point b. From shrinking seats to bad service, we’ve watched what was once an elegant voyage cascade into a myriad of frustrations and retweeted mishaps. Is it so long ago that flying was like the below picture? But are we sometimes, excuse the line, flying...

Not enough time. The words that are uttered relentlessly from just about everyone when asked why they haven’t been on a vacation. For those of us that travel frequently, believe it or not, those words are uttered just as much. Like an addictive drug, we spend days pouring over the possibilities of getting away from it all. Unfortunately, if you are one of the many peons that slug it out all day in a 9-5, finding time for vacations can be even more difficult. But there are ways to achieve all the demands on your time and add to...

I went to the desert to find myself, but I only found a beer. And that my friends is all that I needed. Sometimes it’s just that easy. Kind of strange how things can simply get better with a beer. Apologies to those who are simply unable to partake or choose not to, but some of the best times we have had over our many vacations has been with that frosty…sometimes, beverage in our hands. Even a warm beer can make the day that much nicer depending on the time and place. I’m certainly not advocating that you drop...

The world is changing, that much we know. Of course the debate will be for the better or worse, but I tend to stay away from political discussion as much as possible. But, something has just felt different. I’ve become a bit more consumed with the news than at any other time in my life and I’ve come to a realization. As I’ve grown older, my aspirations have changed as the years have increased. At one point in younger times and obviously with an immature brain, I wanted to be an US Senator. Thankfully, that never occurred although health...

Excuse me for getting a bit out-of-bounds on this post here, but I’m starting to wonder when the chips will fall. At an extremely uncomfortable rate, we’ve watched our world change in many ways. The tourism industry is taking hits left and right and those chips are stacking against us. Hostage crises, ISIS, extremists, plowing cars and a litany of other panic-inducing episodes bring fear into a traveler’s life. On the home front, United Airlines, reduction of loyalty perks, smuggling of just about everything, and even US Air Marshals leaving loaded guns in bathrooms leaves travelers teething and wondering...

In a perfect world, all travelers could enjoy the perfect experience while jet setting on airplanes. But as we’ve seen over the years, this is simply not the case. If you travel frequently, you must expect the tide to turn against you every so often. Not the United-type of tide, but general issues that you can’t seem to avoid. Our family has come to the conclusion that in 10 journeys, one…at a minimum, is going to go wrong. Your luggage being misplaced or lost by the airline isn’t common, but it’s also not rare. With the certainty that this...

The Park Inn in Prague yet again reminds me why I have yet to cancel or even downgrade my Club Carlson Premier Rewards Signature credit card. It had been a long overdue formality that once my annual fee came due, I would be the next to jump on the bandwagon to take this card from my wallet and rarely use again. I will admit we have used Club Carlson points on several overnights in the past year for layovers or quick one-day trips that matter very little to me in terms of overall quality. The Country Inn Suites has...